I. Field of the Disclosure
The technology of the disclosure relates generally to removable memory cards.
II. Background
Mobile terminals have become ubiquitous in modern society. While mobile phones, and in particular, smart phones, have garnered the majority of the attention, numerous other mobile terminals such as cameras, audio players, video recorders, and the like are also widely available. Many of these devices rely on removable memory media to store data. For example, a camera may store photos on a removable memory card. Less portable computing devices such as desktop computers may also have receptacles that receive the removable memory card. Continuing the camera example, a person may take a picture with the camera, store the picture on the removable memory card, remove the card from the camera, insert the card into the receptacle on the desktop computer, and transfer the picture to hard drive of the desktop computer.
Many removable memory cards are some form of Flash memory. However, even with the common Flash memory format, there are numerous proprietary removable memory cards including those provided by Compact Flash (I and II), Secure Digital (SD) (SD, miniSD, microSD, SDHC, miniSDHC, microSDHC, SDXC), Memory Stick (Standard, Pro, Pro Duo, Pro-HG Duo, Micro (M2), xC), MultiMediaCard (MMC) (MMC, RS-MMC, MMCmobile, MMCplus, MMCmicro), Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) mode of operation within a card format, xD (Standard, Type M, Type H, Type M+), XQD, or Ultra High Speed (UHS) (I and II).
In addition to the removable versions of Flash memory, a number of Flash memory protocols exist that are designed for embedded or otherwise non-removable memory units. Such embedded Flash memory units may be soldered or otherwise permanently affixed to the printed circuit boards or substrates of the device. One such protocol is the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) standard proposed by the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC).
To date, UFS has not been applied to a removable memory card protocol. Computing devices will need to be able to deal with UFS compliant removable memory cards.